Baccano!, Chane/Claire
Title: Long Drop Author: shiegra Fandom: Baccano! Pairing: Claire/Chane Rating: NC17
Prompt: March 30: - Baccano!, Claire/Chane: death-defying stunts - you're all I need to get high
When he leapt off the roof, she barely thought before flinging herself after him.
Barely enough time to get proper footing to push off as she skidded down the roof and propelled herself off the edge of the gutter. She didn’t have his coiled, lethal and nigh-inhuman grace, and for a dizzying second the wind caught her hair and she was absolutely certain she would miss the landing and fall.
Something hit hard and carried her to the roof, scraping palms as they rolled in a tangle and ended up with her straddling—when had he gotten to a place where he could catch her?—Claire.
His breath was hot on her face and his eyes were glittering and brilliant with sharp-edged excitement. “I told you to wait.”
Chane cocked her head to the side, breathing hard herself, and let her patient stare speak for itself.
His hands tightened on her hips, fingers curling into her skin, and his mouth hooked into a feral grin. He was looking at her with something like curious, delighted anticipation. “Well.” He said. “Can you keep up?”
Gunshots snapped out harshly below them. She ducked her head until her mouth almost brushed his, and then twisted out of his grip. For a split second his grip was loose enough out of surprise, but she knew he chose to let her go.
She stopped at the peak of the roof, looking down on him, and raised her eyebrows.
He followed her like quicksilver—so fast that she almost couldn’t catch his movements when she wasn’t focused on him, when she was on the edge and moving fast so her momentum kept her up, heels digging into concrete before she gathered herself and jumped between buildings.
She landed on her own this time, didn’t bother to look because he was at her back already, breath practically skimming the back of her neck and he was—he was stalking her, there was no other word for it, but Chane had her own tricks.
The next gap she didn’t leap to the next building, she let herself drop.
Concrete far below her, her hands catching on a fire escape with her whole body curling into the swing to absorb the impact, rolling across metal and down again to land on a windowsill, gone too quick for her body to register just how precarious that balance had been.
She liked the height, but the streets suited her. She knew this place, slipping through crowds and people and the tangle of alleys. He’d kept the roofs, her instincts told her, and they were long past evading pursuit and playing a different kind of cat and mouse, and it was his presence, hunting-hungry at her back, that kept her heart in her throat and adrenaline sweet in her veins.
“You are fast.” He breathed admiringly from far too close behind her as she made a heartbeat-quick pause at a split of streets—Chane whirled, got a flash of savagely delighted smile. She could have let him catch her then and there, but instead changed the rules.
She went inside.
The door had been shadowed and half hidden by a permanent collection of crates, and inside it smelled like smoke and alcohol. She clung to the walls and moved through the people with the precision of a knife, moving for the stairs.
He was there in the crowd when she paused at the top to look down, slipping through people with that bright, affable smile, and when she caught his eyes they sparked hot with promise. She stood poised and loose limbed for a moment more, letting her hands hang by the blades at her thighs long enough for him to cock his head in question at her, then turned and slipped down the hall.
Another flight of stairs and she was through into a room, slipping out and into another twice more before she found one that suited her purposes. She paused on the rug and then moved for the half open window, her hands spread on cool glass as though preparing to shove it up.
Just like it had when she’d been in the air and falling, the hard, heated weight caught her and threw her through space; this time she hit a giving mattress and shook hair out of her eyes to stare up at his face.
He was flushed and grinning, eyes dark. “You are—” he drew in a slow breath and lowered his head, lips parted in a smile that had just enough edge to it to raise her pulse just a hair more. “God.” The word was a low, laughing moan.
She couldn’t say about time, but when she caught his eye and thought it, he laughed and ducked his head, expression artfully abashed. The shift was mundane enough to almost startle her when he kissed her, very nearly violently before he gentled, tongue in her mouth, muscles flexing in his shoulders as she slid her hands up his back and flattened her palms against him, relishing in the sensation.
He made a low, vibrating moan in his throat and leaned back. Chane caught fistfuls of his shirt in her hands and looked up at him, but his smile was lazy. “You teased.” He reminded her, and she gave a soft huff of breath and leaned up.
He planted a hand on her stomach and pressed her down. When she squirmed he was already sliding down her body, stroking a hand over the pale length of her leg and slowly unhooking her boots to slip them off her feet.
His lips on the inside of her calf and then knee made her gasp, a sound that was loud and hummed with the arousal she didn’t have voice to express. When he came back up her body, quicker this time, he slid her dress up by slipping his hands up her thighs. When he discovered the knives strapped there, he made a low, pleased sound deep in his throat that made her shudder. He pressed another kiss to her skin, found the subtle curve of her hipbones and deliberately avoided the damp fabric between.
Her hands clawed into the blankets and he stopped teasing and pressed a kiss directly between her legs, making her buck up suddenly, and then licked her, a languorous stroke with the flat of his tongue. She was writhing under him and he had to straighten and put weight on her to keep her body down as muscles tensed in her thighs. Her eyes were nearly glowing, luminous with heat, and her body arched into his with a low, harsh exhale that echoed with unvoiced sound.
He came up to kissed her again, muttering something against her mouth, and she rose to him, wound her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, the sheathed knives imprinting the hint of danger into his body.
He hissed at the contact and then the friction as she moved tentatively around him, surer as she figured out what felt good and ground her hips against his. “Wait—”
In a sudden scramble of limbs she pushed him away and unbuckled the knives impatiently to slide her underwear down her legs, kicking them carelessly over the side of the bed. When she turned back to him she reached for him again but he dropped down and picked up the knives.
Chane made a breathy huff of impatience and her fingers tangled in his hair; he pressed his mouth to the pale, delicate skin of her inner thigh and rebuckled the knife sheath.
She tilted her head at him in silent puzzlement when he lifted his head; he smiled, eyes heavy lidded and dark, and rose to catch her mouth again, pulling her body up against him. She gasped and arched against him, hooking a leg behind his to pull him closer.
When he slid inside she was so wet it was easy, almost painless and she came almost on the first few strokes, the foreplay—more than the touching, the whole run had been foreplay, a dance of challenge—winding her to the breaking point. Her mouth opened in a voiceless scream as she came apart in his arms and he clutched her to him, mouth locked possessive over her pulse.
When she came back to herself he was still moving, slow and steady in her, and when she started breathing more evenly and loosening her locked grip around his neck he sped up, thrusts deep and smooth. She clutched at him, raggedly silent. When renewed and building arousal tightened her around him, he made a soft, almost musical sound of pleasure and propped himself on his elbows to catch her face in one hand and watch her wide, glazed eyes.
“Yes.” He said, thick and throaty, “again.”
She reared up to kiss him and the movement changed the angle somehow, let him slide a fraction deeper. They both shuddered and she gasped against his mouth and shifted her hips almost fitfully, poised on the edge as he shifted his own position to get better leverage to thrust up into her.
His hand slipped down to flatten against her spine, forcing her into more of an arch so that his lips could drop to her breasts, mouthing along pale skin. His fingers then traced down her side and across her stomach and between them, and when he slipped his fingers deftly there she came again, convulsing over and against him and clutching at him. She was raw and soundless and open, and he held her and thrust through it, harder before speeding up and finally finishing in two ragged thrusts.
They fell to the bed, his head pillowed between her breasts, and regained their breath together. The cool air from the window raised goose bumps on her skin, and Chane ducked her head and burrowed closer.
After a moment he asked, low and musing, “whose house is this?”
She shrugged helplessly.
He shook with silent laughter as he pulled her up for hard, sure kiss.